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“A screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut.” That’s the
image Nina (Rene Russo) evokes when describing her news program in director Dan
Gilroy’s tremendous thriller Nightcrawler. It’s tempting to adopt that as a
metaphor for the entire film—Gilroy’s first, by the way, which makes his
achievement doubly impressive—but while that is definitely part of the equation,
what drives this movie forward is the menace that lurks just below the surface,
beneath a calm exterior personified by Jake Gyllenhaal’s Louis Bloom.
A nocturnal rambler who scrounges for anything he can steal and sell, bolted
down or not, Lou is a motivated self-starter. Full of meaningful acronyms,
manufactured self-confidence, and
drive powered by self-improvement seminars, catchphrase wisdom and insight, he’s
looking for a career to break into on the ground floor. When he comes across the
lucrative world of nightcrawlers, freelance stringers who race after breaking
news stories—the bloodier, the better is the prevailing wisdom—he has the
ambition, opportunity and, most importantly, the moral flexibility to excel.
Gyllenhaal, who shed in excess of 30 pounds for the role, has rarely—if
ever—been better. Lou is calm, frank, goal oriented and even borders on charming
at times, but this measured exterior belies the inherent violence you spend the
entire movie waiting to see erupt. He has a hungry, animal energy—he’s often
visually equated to a coyote—like a sociopathic used car salesman who isn’t
afraid to use manipulation to secure a sale. And failing that, you’ve no doubt
that ripping out the jugular is a viable option.
 With his lax concerns about ethics, journalistic or otherwise, Lou traffics in
human misery, never afraid to step across a given line, both metaphorical and
police issued. And because of
this, his footage is ratings gold, which leads to
a symbiotic relationship with the vampiric Nina, who runs the night shift news
at the lowest-rated network in town. Russo is also at the top of
her game here; ruthless and desperate, she thinks she’s found a rube in Lou,
only to be terribly surprised. As he continues down his dark path, pushing
further beyond the boundaries and into extremism, she’s right there with him.
Nightcrawler circles around a bit before finding a rhythm and getting to the
real meat, and is almost procedural in the way Lou gets into the trade. But once
the momentum picks up, it doesn’t stop. As Lou grows more unhinged in his quest
for the perfect shot—he doesn’t hesitate to move what may be a corpse, or a
seriously injured man, at an accident scene for better composition—the film
becomes a scathing indictment of an industry that favors ratings above all else,
including information.
There’s a sharp, equally vicious class divide that cuts through the nightcrawler
craft—wealthier
neighborhoods and whiter skin translates to more eyes on the
screen. You don’t learn anything specific about Lou’s background, but much is
hinted at through Gyllenhaal’s controlled fury. He’s lonely, broke and broken.
With his continual self-education—everything he says could be a quote from a
flavor-of-the-week, how-to-succeed-in-business book—he has the air of a prisoner
with a lot of spare time on his hands to read. He’s manufacturing his own
up-by-your-bootstraps, rags-to-riches tale, augmented at times by James Newton
Howard’s score, and is the hero of a narrative of his own divining.
While Gyllenhaal and Russo take center stage, they’re propped up by a few nice
supporti ng performances. Riz Ahmed as Rick, Lou’s navigator, sidekick and second
camera, is dimwitted and beleaguered, not sure he signed up to be part of an
enterprise his boss runs like a Fortune 500 company, all for $30 a night. Bill
Paxton also appears as a slimy veteran nightcrawler, bringing a layer of smarm
and sleaze like only Paxton can.
From the very first shots, which paint Los Angeles as idyllic and peaceful—a
façade that doesn’t last long— Robert Elswit’s cinematography may be the unsung
hero of Nightcrawler. Paul Thomas Anderson’s go-to guy, Elswit gives you a cold
distance, much like Lou films the graphic scenes of human lives lying in ruins.
He watches his camera, never seeing the scattered bodies as anything more than
objects, and that’s how Elswit shoots. You focus on Lou; everything else hovers
hazily in the background, inconsequential. Elswit has also lensed big action
blockbusters like
Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol and Salt (he was also the
DP on The Bourne Legacy, which Gilroy wrote), so the many high-speed moments in
cars are presented with a dynamic visual flair, striking a solid balance.
Balance is key to Nightcrawler. Lou, and the movie as a whole, walk a tightrope
with little room for error. A moment too late and Lou has nothing, whereas a
misstep could send the film plummeting into absurdity, farce, or worse yet,
unbelievably. But Gilroy’s script and Gyllenhaal’s ravenous performance keep
it reined in, and tightly. Nightcrawler is tense and intense, ferocious and
obsessed, and crackles with energy and a dark sense of humor.
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